The travel costs for vacations taken by the first family and the Bidens have reached over $40 million with the Air Force's revelation that two golf outings by President Obama this year cost $2.9 million, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Judicial Watch.

The group said that the Air Force provided documents and records that put the price of the first family's trip toKey Largo, Fla., in March at $885,683 just for flying Air Force One. The travel costs to golf in Palm Springs, Calif., in February, where the president also met with King Abdullah II of Jordan, was $2,066,594, said the Air Force documents, according to Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch has been filing repeated Freedom of Information Act requests for travel costs and the Air Force has provided many documents during the administration.

So far, Judicial Watch said that it has tabulated vacation travel costs, mostly just Air Force jet time, at over $40 million. Far more money is spent on accommodations, communications, rooms and cars for staff, security and U.S. Secret Service protection, Navy and Coast Guard ships offshore and the prepositioning of cars and helicopters, but those costs are not usually revealed.

“It is clear that the Obamas continually abuse the perks of the president’s office at taxpayer expense,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement to Secrets. “And it is particularly interesting that Obama has chosen to take not one but two luxury vacations back-to-back while inveighing against ‘income equality.’ President Obama’s waste of the hard-earned tax dollars of working Americans on unnecessary luxury travel is an abuse of office.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy slowed drastically in the first three months of the year as a harsh winter exacted a toll on business activity. The slowdown, while worse than expected, is likely to be temporary as growth rebounds with warmer weather.

Growth slowed to a barely discernible 0.1 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That was the weakest pace since the end of 2012 and was down from a 2.6 percent rate in the previous quarter.

Many economists said the government's first estimate of growth in the January-March quarter was skewed by weak figures early in the quarter. They noted that several sectors — from retail sales to manufacturing output — rebounded in March. That strength should provide momentum for the rest of the year.

And on Friday, economists expect the government to report a solid 200,000-plus job gain for April.

Pope Francis’s tweet echoes President Barack Obama’s statement that income inequality is “the defining challenge of our time.” However, Obama's own pollster, Joel Benenson, toldreporters at a Democratic gathering that he believes "the attention on inequality is a bit over-hyped."

Economists attribute a host of micro and macro factors to explaining the accelerated gains of top earners. A new study by an international team of economists led by University of Pennsylvania's Jeremy Greenwood finds that "assortive mating" behaviors--choosing to marry within one's own educational or income strata--have widened the gap between lower and upper income earners.

Also, a book by two MIT professors titled The Second Machine Age concludes that income inequality's "main driver is exponential, digital, combinatorial change in the technology that undergirds our economic system," which allows young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to achieve stratospheric wealth in record time.

Obama’s half-measures give Vladimir Putin little to fear

By Editorial Board, Published: APRIL 28, 4:38 PM ET

VLADIMIR PUTIN’S assault on Ukraine has been relentless and increasingly reckless: Forces working with Russian personnel in eastern Ukraine are torturing and murdering opponents and holding international observers hostage. In contrast, President Obama’s response has been slow and excruciatingly measured. New U.S. sanctions announced Monday fall well short of the steps that senior officials threatened when the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine began three weeks ago.

No wonder that, even as he announced them, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism that they would work. “We don’t expect there to be an immediate change in Russia’s policy,” a top aide told reporters. This official acknowledged that the United States could take steps that would impose “severe damage on the Russian economy” but was holding them back. The obvious question is: Why would the United States not aim to bring about an immediate change in Russian behavior that includes sponsorship of murder, torture and hostage-taking?

Mr. Obama said the sanctions, aimed at business cronies of Mr. Putin and their firms, are “calibrated” to “change his calculus.” As in the failed attempt to change the calculations of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the White House is assuming that a ruler engaged in wanton aggression can be gently steered to an off-ramp with half measures. The strategy was worth trying after the Ukraine crisis began in late February, but the Russian president, like Mr. Assad, has made a mockery of the administration’s diplomacy, blatantly ignoring the agreement accepted by his foreign minister in Geneva 11 days ago.

U.S. officials say that “sectoral” sanctions against Russian banks and the energy and mining industries are being held in reserve as a deterrent against a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But that seems to imply a writing-off of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its systematic and increasingly brutal effort to create chaos in eastern provinces. And hasn’t Russia already invaded Ukraine? Kiev’s intelligence service says at least 30 officers of the Russian military intelligence service have been directing the assaults on local governments; aWhite House statement Mondaysaid, “Russia’s involvement in the recent violence in eastern Ukraine is indisputable.”

A better explanation was hinted at by a senior official who said the administration did not want to act without the European Union, which announced its own minimalist sanctions expansion Monday. The official also said that the administration needed to consider “the effect on the global economy.” That suggests the U.S. sanctions policy is “calibrated” less toward rescuing Ukraine than toward avoiding steps that would ruffle feathers in Brussels or set back U.S. economic growth in an election year.

Those are understandable motives, but they ought to be trumped by the imperative of standing unambiguously against the first forcible change of borders in Europe since World War II. By choosing not to use the economic weapons at his disposal and broadcasting that restraint to the world, Mr. Obama is telling Mr. Putin as well as other potential aggressors that they continue to have little to fear from the United States.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) said Secretary of State John Kerry should tender his resignation to President Obama for his offensive comments about Israel during a speech on the Senate floor Monday.

First reported by The Daily Beast, Kerry told world leaders Friday in a closed-door meeting that he thought Israel could become an “apartheid state” if it didn’t reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians. The remarks drew swift condemnation from the pro-Israel community, with AIPAC calling them “deeply troubling” and “offensive” and the Anti-Defamation League saying Kerry had “used the repugnant language of Israel’s adversaries and accusers to express concern for Israel’s future.”

“The fact that Secretary Kerry sees nothing wrong with making a statement comparing Israel’s policy to the abhorrent apartheid policies of South Africa, and doing so on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, demonstrates a shocking lack of sensitivity to the incendiary and damaging nature of his rhetoric,” Cruz said. “Mr. President, sadly, it is my belief that Secretary Kerry has proven himself unsuitable for the position he holds. And therefore, before any further harm is done to our national security interests and to our critical alliance with the nation of Israel, John Kerry should offer President Obama his resignation and the president should accept it.”

Secretary Kerry should offer President Obama his resignation, and the President should accept it.

In my 23 years as a practicing physician, I've learned that the only thing that matters is the doctor-patient relationship. How we interact and treat our patients is the practice of medicine. I acknowledge that there is a problem with the rising cost of health care, but there is also a problem when the individual physician in the trenches does not have a voice in the debate and is being told what to do and how to do it.

As a group, the nearly 880,000 licensed physicians in the U.S. are, for the most part, well-intentioned. We strive to do our best even while we sometimes contend with unrealistic expectations. The demands are great, and many of our families pay a huge price for our not being around. We do the things we do because it is right and our patients expect us to.

So when do we say damn the mandates and requirements from bureaucrats who are not in the healing profession? When do we stand up and say we are not going to take it any more?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dictates that we must use an electronic health record (EHR) or be penalized with lower reimbursements in the future. There are "meaningful use" criteria whereby the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tells us as physicians what we need to include in the electronic health record or we will not be subsidized the cost of converting to the electronic system and we will be penalized by lower reimbursements. Across the country, doctors waste precious time filling in unnecessary electronic-record fields just to satisfy a regulatory measure. I personally spend two hours a day dictating and documenting electronic health records just so I can be paid and not face a government audit. Is that the best use of time for a highly trained surgical specialist?

This is not a unique complaint. A study commissioned by the American Medical Association last year and conducted by the RAND Corp. found that "Poor EHR usability, time-consuming data entry, interference with face-to-face patient care, inefficient and less fulfilling work content, inability to exchange health information between EHR products, and degradation of clinical documentation were prominent sources of professional dissatisfaction."

In addition to the burden of mandated electronic-record entry, doctors also face board recertification in the various medical specialties that has become time-consuming, expensive, imposing and a convenient method for our specialty societies and boards to make money.

Meanwhile, our Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements have significantly declined, let alone kept up with inflation. In orthopedic surgery, for example, Medicare reimbursement for a total knee replacement decreased by about 68% between 1992 and 2010, based on the value of 1992 dollars. How can this be? Don't doctors have control over what they charge for their services? For the most part, no. Our medical documentation is pored over and insurers and government then determine the appropriate level of reimbursement.

I don't know about other physicians but I am tired—tired of the mandates, tired of outside interference, tired of anything that unnecessarily interferes with the way I practice medicine. No other profession would put up with this kind of scrutiny and coercion from outside forces. The legal profession would not. The labor unions would not. We as physicians continue to plod along and take care of our patients while those on the outside continue to intrude and interfere with the practice of medicine.

We could change the paradigm. We could as a group elect not to take any insurance, not to accept Medicare—many doctors are already taking these steps—and not to roll over time and time again. We have let nearly everyone trespass on the practice of medicine. Are we better for it? Has it improved quality? Do we have more of a voice at the table or less? Are we as physicians happier or more disgruntled then two years ago? Five years ago? Ten years ago?

At 58, I'll likely be retired in 10 years along with most physicians of my generation. Once we're gone, who will speak up for our profession and the individual physician in the trenches? The politicians? Our medical societies? Our hospital administrators? I think not. Now is the time for physicians to say enough is enough.

Dr. Craviotto is an orthopedic surgeon in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

People attend a rally to protest against deportations outside the White House, in Washington DC, USA, 28 April 2014. Over a dozen people were arrested for civil disobedience by US Park Police. (Michael Reynolds/EPA)

Sunday, April 27, 2014

With multiple crises spiraling out of control around the world, stories about the Obama presidency are taking on the air of postmortems. What went wrong, who’s to blame, what next — even The New York Times is starting to recognize that Dear Leader is a global flop.

“Obama Suffers Setbacks in Japan and the Mideast,” the paper declared on Friday’s front page. The double whammy of failure pushed the growing Russian menace in Europe to inside pages, but even they were chock-full of reports about utopia gone wrong.

One story detailed how the White House was facing the “consequences of underestimating” North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Others recounted the continuing Syrian slaughter and the murder of three Americans in Afghanistan.

The accounts and others like them amount to an autopsy of a failed presidency, but the process won’t be complete unless it is completely honest. To meet that test, the Times, other liberal news organizations and leading Democrats, in and out of office, must come to grips with their own failures, as well.

Obama had a free hand to make a mess because they gave it to him. They cheered him on, supporting him with unprecedented gobs of money and near-unanimous votes. They said “aye” to any cockamamie concept he came up with, echoed his demonization of critics and helped steamroll unpopular and unworkable ideas into reality.

Some of his backers knew better, and said so privately, but publicly they were all in. Whether it was ObamaCare, his anti-Israel position or the soft-shoe shuffle around the Iranian nuke crisis, they lacked the courage to object.

They said nothing as Obama went on foreign apology tours and stood silent as our allies warned of disastrous consequences. Even now, despite protests from a succession of Pentagon leaders, former Democratic defense hawks are helping Obama hollow out our military as Russia and China expand theirs and al Qaeda extends its footprint.

A king is no king without a court, and Obama has not lacked for lackeys. The system of checks and balances is written into the Constitution, but it is the everyday behavior of Americans of good will that makes the system work.

That system broke down under Obama, and the blame starts with the media. By giving the president the benefit of the doubt at every turn, by making excuses to explain away fiascos, by ignoring corruption, by buying the White House line that his critics were motivated by pure politics or racism, the Times and other organizations played the role of bartender to a man on a bender.

Even worse, they joined the party, forgetting the lessons of history as well as their own responsibilities to put a check on power. A purpose of a free press is to hold government accountable, but there is no fallback when the watchdog voluntarily chooses to be a lapdog.

The sycophancy was not lost on other politicians and private citizens. Taking their cue from the media, they, too, bit their tongues and went along as the president led the nation astray and misread foreign threats.

From the start, support for Obama often had a cult-like atmosphere. He sensed it, began to believe it and became comfortable demanding total agreement as the price for the favor of his leadership.

That he is now the imperial president he used to bemoan is no longer in dispute. The milking of perks, from golf trips to Florida to European vacations for the first lady, is shockingly vulgar, but not a peep of protest comes from his supporters.

The IRS becomes a political enforcer, but that, too, is accepted because nobody will risk their access by telling Obama no. You are either with him or you are his enemy.

The evidence is everywhere that his ideas are flawed, that his view of economics, diplomacy, the military, history, science and religion are warped by his own narcissism. He doesn’t even talk a good game anymore.

Yet it remains a fool’s errand to hope he will correct his ways. He is not capable; he looks in the mirror and sees only a savior.

It is equally clear that those who shielded him from facts and their own best judgment did him no favors. Out of fear and favor, they abdicated their duty to the nation, and they must share the burden of history’s verdict. After all, America’s decline happened on their watch, too.

With multiple crises spiraling out of control around the world, stories about the Obama presidency are taking on the air of postmortems. What went wrong, who’s to blame, what next — even The New York Times is starting to recognize that Dear Leader is a global flop.

“Obama Suffers Setbacks in Japan and the Mideast,” the paper declared on Friday’s front page. The double whammy of failure pushed the growing Russian menace in Europe to inside pages, but even they were chock-full of reports about utopia gone wrong.

One story detailed how the White House was facing the “consequences of underestimating” North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Others recounted the continuing Syrian slaughter and the murder of three Americans in Afghanistan.

The accounts and others like them amount to an autopsy of a failed presidency, but the process won’t be complete unless it is completely honest. To meet that test, the Times, other liberal news organizations and leading Democrats, in and out of office, must come to grips with their own failures, as well.

Obama had a free hand to make a mess because they gave it to him. They cheered him on, supporting him with unprecedented gobs of money and near-unanimous votes. They said “aye” to any cockamamie concept he came up with, echoed his demonization of critics and helped steamroll unpopular and unworkable ideas into reality.

Some of his backers knew better, and said so privately, but publicly they were all in. Whether it was ObamaCare, his anti-Israel position or the soft-shoe shuffle around the Iranian nuke crisis, they lacked the courage to object.

They said nothing as Obama went on foreign apology tours and stood silent as our allies warned of disastrous consequences. Even now, despite protests from a succession of Pentagon leaders, former Democratic defense hawks are helping Obama hollow out our military as Russia and China expand theirs and al Qaeda extends its footprint.

A king is no king without a court, and Obama has not lacked for lackeys. The system of checks and balances is written into the Constitution, but it is the everyday behavior of Americans of good will that makes the system work.

That system broke down under Obama, and the blame starts with the media. By giving the president the benefit of the doubt at every turn, by making excuses to explain away fiascos, by ignoring corruption, by buying the White House line that his critics were motivated by pure politics or racism, the Times and other organizations played the role of bartender to a man on a bender.

Even worse, they joined the party, forgetting the lessons of history as well as their own responsibilities to put a check on power. A purpose of a free press is to hold government accountable, but there is no fallback when the watchdog voluntarily chooses to be a lapdog.

The sycophancy was not lost on other politicians and private citizens. Taking their cue from the media, they, too, bit their tongues and went along as the president led the nation astray and misread foreign threats.

From the start, support for Obama often had a cult-like atmosphere. He sensed it, began to believe it and became comfortable demanding total agreement as the price for the favor of his leadership.

That he is now the imperial president he used to bemoan is no longer in dispute. The milking of perks, from golf trips to Florida to European vacations for the first lady, is shockingly vulgar, but not a peep of protest comes from his supporters.

The IRS becomes a political enforcer, but that, too, is accepted because nobody will risk their access by telling Obama no. You are either with him or you are his enemy.

The evidence is everywhere that his ideas are flawed, that his view of economics, diplomacy, the military, history, science and religion are warped by his own narcissism. He doesn’t even talk a good game anymore.

Yet it remains a fool’s errand to hope he will correct his ways. He is not capable; he looks in the mirror and sees only a savior.

It is equally clear that those who shielded him from facts and their own best judgment did him no favors. Out of fear and favor, they abdicated their duty to the nation, and they must share the burden of history’s verdict. After all, America’s decline happened on their watch, too.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Dubai (AFP) - Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called in an interview for militants to kidnap Westerners, especially Americans, to exchange them for jihadist captives.

In the second part of an interview with Al-Qaeda media arm As-Sahab, which the US-based SITE monitoring service said a jihadist posted on Twitter, Zawahiri was asked what Muslims should do to free militant prisoners.

"I advise them to capture Westerners and especially the Americans as much as they can, to exchange them for their captives," he replied.

In the first part of the interview, released on April 19, the Al-Qaeda chief called for unity amid widening divisions with a rival jihadist organisation rooted in the Syrian civil war.

Zawahiri succeeded the late Osama bin Laden as leader of the global terror network in 2011.

"We have the information we are in danger," Danylo Lubkivsky told reporters at the United Nations.

He spoke as an official in Ukraine confirmed that pro-Russian forces had detained a team of military observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The official said the team would be released after further investigation.

Lubkivsky said 20 members had been taken and called it shocking and unprecedented. "We demand to release hostages," he said.

Tensions have spiked as Russia increases military exercises along the Ukraine border. Lubkivsky called it a "very dangerous development" and demanded that Russia withdraw its troops.

"We are going to protect our motherland against any invasion," Lubkivsky said. "We call on the Russians to stop this madness."

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, told reporters earlier Friday that Ban Ki-moon had been reaching out to both countries.

"I think we all have to realize here that the stakes are extremely high, with potential negative implications for peace and security that extend far beyond the eastern Ukrainian cities," Dujarric said. "It would be a grave mistake in the secretary-general's views for any party to turn to military means in an attempt to resolve political issues that can and must be addressed by peaceful means."

On Friday in Japan before President Barack Obama took off to South Korea, mainstream media reporters had a few moments to ask Obama about the most pressing issues.

Instead, they asked about how well he slept and whether he liked his ice cream dessert that was in the shape of Mt. Fuji.

According to pool reports, the Associated Press's Julie Pace asked Obama if he slept well. Obama replied, "I'm still on 4 am time."

Then, Obama was asked about ice cream, according to pool reports:

Another reporter asked Obama if he like the ice cream dessert in the shape of Mt. Fuji served at the state dinner. Obama nodded, saying, "They have the green tea at the bottom that I've spoken of having when I was six, and I was very pleased," Obama said. "It was delicious."

The Nuclear Option -- Barack Obama: President of the United States, but King of the Selfie

by Charles Hurt

In these selfie times when freedom, joy, and posterity are just a head-tilt, grin, and finger-click away, it is only fitting that the United States of America would have as commander-in-chief the undisputed King of Selfies.

The Selfie Presidency for the Selfie Generation in a Selfie World.

President Obama is that rightful king.

There he is with the greatest baseball players of our day. The president mugging for a selfie outside the White House. Later he feigned outrage when it became public that the picture of him with Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz and a “44” jersey was just part of some sleazy corporate product campaign by Samsung.

And here he is now with Vice President Joe Biden in the back seat of his limo with the Presidential Seal embroidered on the plush leather armrest between them. Another selfie that is part of another campaign, this one political for Biden in 2016.

The most infamous selfie of all was snapped during the funeral of Nelson Mandela. That unfortunate photo immortalized what apparently mattered most at this funeral for the man who patiently stared down violent apartheid: King Selfie’s own iconic image.

Stop and think about it. Can you envision any other president in history posing for a selfie and distributing it to the world?

Ronald Reagan? Jimmy Carter?

Bill Clinton? Perhaps. But he would most likely point the camera some place other than his smiling face. At least, he would have the decency to keep the picture between himself and one or two of his favorite interns. Maybe send it to Anthony Weiner.

This plague of becoming your own paparazzi has infected the entire White House publicity apparatus. The Obama selfie has become its own cult of personality.

On the 225th anniversary of George Washington’s first election to the presidency, the White House dispatched a picture of — President Obama! In the background of that presidential selfie is a portrait of George Washington hanging over the fireplace mantel in the Oval Office.

In observance of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the White House sent out another presidential selfie. This one with his First Lady. They are visiting the Lincoln Memorial.

Aside from being a supernova of self-absorption, the practice of snapping pictures of yourself for public consumption is a willfully delusional view of the world. As if you are all that exists and the whole ugly world all around you, pressing in, can be simply blocked from the aperture by your own mugging face.

In this fairy tale of Selfie Land, President Obama can be all the things he said he would be.

He can simply become that “moment when the rise of our oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

He can simply become that “moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”

Call it the Selfie Doctrine. It is when you tightly close your eyes, plug your fingers into your ears, stamp your feet, and begin jabbering loudly to drown out everything that anyone around you is trying to say.

It is how Selfie Doctrine achieves peace in this Selfie World. Just ask them in Syria, in Iran, in Ukraine, and in Afghanistan.

It is also the behavior you spank out of your children before they graduate from kindergarten.

Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com and on Twitter@charleshurt.

The push for Mideast peace in which President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have invested hundreds of precious hours and priceless political capital didn’t just fizzle, but imploded spectacularly — scarring America’s credibility on the world stage and putting Israel, if possible, in a more precarious position than before.

Those facts became glaringly obvious with the announcement this week that the relatively moderate, allegedly peace-seeking Palestinian Authority will seek to form a unity government with the rejectionist, terrorist Hamas.

The U.S. strategy was dubious from the get-go. Beginning last June and intensifying in January, Obama and Kerry consistently squeezed Israel — leaning on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements and release convicted Palestinian terrorists — while placing almost no pressure on the other side of the table.

That asymmetry is dishonest, and dangerous.

Meantime, in a profoundly boneheaded move, Obama and Kerry lent credibility to the worldwide movement to boycott, divest from and sanction the Jewish state, by claiming that failure to broker peace would have stark consequences for Israel (and apparently none for the Palestinians).

“The risks are very high for Israel. People are talking about boycott,” Kerry said in February. “That will intensify in the case of failure.” Obama echoed the sentiment in March.

Beyond the failure to make progress down the path of peace, here are the rotten fruits of the stupid, scrambled strategy:

PA boss Mahmoud Abbas, refusing even to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, has returned to the UN in a unilateral effort to join 15 international organizations and treaties. That move will further aggravate future efforts to reach a negotiated deal.

The Palestinian Authority has rushed into the arms of Hamas, the radical terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip and remains dedicated to Israel’s total destruction. There could be no clearer sign of Palestinians’ flat unwillingness to make any difficult choices that would advance bilateral negotiations.